BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson
Talks to the Keswick Guide
 | WHAT have Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Nelson Mandela and Robert Mugabe in common, not to mention Mikhail Gorbachev, Yasser Arafat, Colonel Gadhaffi and the Ayatollah Khomeini? The answer is that they have all been interviewed by the BBC's famous World Affairs Editor John Simpson. And now John Simpson, ahead of a visit to Keswick for the Words by the Water literature festival, has been speaking exclusively to the Keswick Guide - and revealing some surprising views about the media with which he is not quite as enthralled as people might think. He also talks about his joy and hopes for his own family. |
One of the highlights of this year's Words by the Water is the session with the veteran broadcaster who has reported from the world's trouble spots for over 40 years - and survived being shelled, dodging bullets, having a gun held to his head and even being punched by a former prime minister (it was Harold Wilson). The author of several books, his session at the lakeside theatre on Saturday March 12, is billed as Unreliable Sources. Not that he is having a go at today's media - it appears the habit of under-reporting or fudging the facts has an old, if dishonourable history.
As John says: "Over the decades the British media have not proved themselves particularly well informed, or particularly good about informing others. There was far too much jingoism in the Boer War coverage -- and the Telegraph correspondent assured his readers there was absolutely no truth in stories of Boer women and children dying in British concentration camps, where maybe 20,000 died.
"There was absolutely no suggestion in the weeks after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 that Britain might get pulled into war with Germany. The Daily Mail consistently assured its readers that Adolf Hitler was a natural partner for Britain in the 1930s. No British war correspondents were on hand to show the dreadfulness and courage of the Dunkirk operation, and when a Daily Express correspondent managed to get to Hiroshima and revealed the truth about radiation sickness, other newspapers poo-pooed it.
"And so on and on, to the weapons of mass destruction in our own time. It just goes to show, not that newspapers, radio and television are worthless, but that they are just as subject to human weaknesses as the rest of us. We must always use our own judgement, and never think these things have the force of gospel."
But John does not dismiss entire newspapers - instead, he says that we have to exercise our own judgement, on a case by case basis. "Trust is something that each individual news organisation, each individual writer, has to earn," he says.
Looking at recent coverage, John believes that the credit crunch was one issue that was not covered as well as it could have been - in fact, this led to journalists being questioned by the Government over the way they had handled the issues.
"‘Broadcasters, even more than newspaper reporters, tend to be oppositional; they see it as their job to put the other line and to be the voice of the underdog. This is true of most broadcasters, not just the BBC ones. Sometimes it can be tedious, and the credit crunch was one of those times. But it's a damned sight better than the old ‘Do you have a word for the nation, prime minister?' days."
John has worked for the BBC for many years now, and has watched their influence grow. "To my amazement, the BBC has gone, during my working lifetime, from being just another medium-sized European broadcaster to being the dominant force in international news and programming. This makes Britain the world's main information superpower, and it's done it partly because the American broadcasters have simply imploded in the world, and partly because it is trusted.
"That trust (as I know from my own experience recently, when I made a stupid mistake on air) takes a long time to build up and can be lost in a single broadcast. But infuriating though the BBC can be, dreadful though it can be as an employer, it does believe in honest, unbiased and open broadcasting. This, I would say, is its reward."
John is looking forward both to coming to Keswick - "I have always found it spectacularly charming and beautiful" - and to the Words by the Water event.
"I think literary festivals are a very important part of public culture -- in this case, of presenting ideas to thinking audiences around the country. Of course bores like me often use the occasion to trumpet their annoyance that things aren't going the way they'd like. But it's much more than that: it's a chance to see the real people of the country, to get an idea of what they're like and what they want and what they're interested in. That's why I like to spend most of my time taking questions rather than just raving on. It's my chance to listen to the people who pay my wages."
Looking ahead, with a young son to bring up, what are his fears for him? "I'm afraid he'll get washed away by the tide of dreary popular commercial culture, and believe that nothing matters beyond today and its consumerism. I'm trying to inculcate strong moral and traditional values in him, but then I'll let him loose to sort things out as he chooses."
And his strongest hopes? "I learned with the two daughters of my first marriage not to be overly ambitious for them, and they've repaid me by being loving, intelligent and cultured, and having happy and stable marriages with an extraordinary number of children: three each. If my son turns out the same, he can be foreign secretary or a window-cleaner, I won't care, as long as he reads a lot and is kind and thoughtful."
Lancashire-born Simpson, the son of an anarchist, became a BBC reporter in 1970 since when he has reported from more than 120 countries including 30 war zones.
